Zeng Jinyan: Concerns for Health of Hu Jia in Beijing Prison

Thanks to a translator who prefers to remain anonymous for providing the following:

In her blog entry of April 25, Zeng Jinyan discusses how on April 22 she went with their one-year-old child to visit her husband, activist Hu Jia, at the prison where he is being held on the outskirts of Beijing.

“After filling out some paperwork, I went to the waiting room. Hu Jia was already waiting. The police officer at his side changed. The electronic signboard on the wall said Hu Jia, window 4. We spoke by telephone at window 4. The sound wasn’t good and it was cut-off several times.

The window was very dirty and made for a fuzzy affect as if there were many, many layers of glass. I could see Hu Jia, but I couldn’t see him completely clearly. He had gotten a lot thinner, his face looked a bit pointy. He said he hadn’t been able to eat, so he got thinner. I asked him why he didn’t eat eggs. He replied he gets one or two eggs a week. He doesn’t eat with the other prisoners, the prison gives him vegetarian food. He can’t eat well and sleeps poorly. I asked him about the results of his physical, he said he doesn’t know and the prison personnel don’t know either. They said they will have to wait for the results from the hospital. But this is normal, not getting the results within a week!

I had to worry, thinking back to that first physical after he had disappeared for 41 days in 2006. The B sonogram showed signs of a hardening of the liver. Other test results can back within 4 – 5 days, showing everything was normal. That time I put too much confidence in the those test results that came back with some delay, thinking everything was fine. Who know that in April 2006, he gradually had less and less appetite, then couldn’t get out of bed. I thought he was too tired and sent him to the hospital for treatment, only to find out that he was in very serious condition and needed immediate medical treatment.

Now it is April and we have been waiting for the medical exam results for two months and his antiviral medicines have already stopped for three months. Now he can’t eat and is suddenly getting thinner. Could there be some physical problem? I believe that the prison is monitoring our conversations more and more tightly. His letters home have been returned twice for rewriting. All the books I have given him, except for some examination preparation books, have been rejected. Has Hu Jia been protesting to the prison officials? There is no hot water in the prison, has he caught a cold again?

There is so much to say, but I don’t know where to start. There are so many ears listening. It is hard to talk about family matters. The child went to see her father. The guards with Hu Jia this time weren’t as friendly as last time and she got scared. So she came back to me. We can’t go through that door but the innocent child sometimes go through to see her father.

The phone suddenly cut off. They said the half hour was up. The police officer told Hu Jia to go back. I was full of regrets since I hadn’t really said anything and the child didn’t really have a chance to get close to her father. Talking like this is like not talking at all, better to let father and daughter play for half an hour.

When I got back home, my mother-in-law asked me, he is getting so thin, what can we do?

What can we do? What can we do?

The next day, my mother-in-law called the Public Security Domestic Security Detachment (Guobao). I called the prison several times. The people in charge weren’t in, so we could only just keep on calling. Shouldn’t they have informed the person who had the physical and their family members long ago? Are they going to give Hu Jia his medicine? Should they not guarantee that they are going to promise to give Hu Jia nutritious food? Should they not guarantee freedom of communications for us? Should they be preventing his family members from sending him books and necessities for daily life? Shouldn’t the prison provide hot water as a basic humanitarian and health necessity?